Sunday, December 19, 2010

[ALT: Not only is that terrible in general, but you just KNOW Billy's going to open the root present first, and then everyone will have to wait while the heap is rebuilt.]

I had the honor to be present when Randy created this comic. He was eavesdropping outside Megan's window, as is his wont on the cold, dark evenings of a Boston winter, when she mentioned to her family on the phone (tragically distant for the holidays) that she had finally got her Christmas tree. For a few moments, Randy's mind started clicking and whirring, when suddenly, he screamed, "YOU MEAN LIKE THE DATA STRUCTURE??? OH MY GOD I AM THE BEST COMICS ARTIST EVER HAHAHAHA," then fled through the streets before Megan could arrest him for violating his restraining order for the third time today.

Later, at his underground warren in Fort Randy's Mom, he spent hours and hours trying to make this brilliant connection--the word "tree" is not used exclusively to refer to a type of data structure, but it also describes the pointy green thing you put in your living room around the winter solstice for some reason. (Randy is not sure how the pointy green thing is like his beloved data structure, and is fairly certain that the words are actually unrelated, but the lack of similarity only makes his genius the greater.) But how could he convey this connection? He knew that it would need to be a visual thing, so he pulled up the Photoshop gradient shading tool he reserves only for his most artistic of comics. But what could he put in front of the gradient?

He sketched a few trees, of both both the data and the pointy green thing variety, but came no closer until he noticed that the data trees were kind of pointy in shape sometimes! "MEGAN WILL FINALLY LOVE ME," screamed Randy, and he swiftly set about making a pointy green data tree in front of a gradient. But then part of his brain kicked in and reminded him that when you do something like this it is called a "pun," and it is traditional for people to groan and call them "bad" when they like them a lot. So he threw in some characters with gradient-heads and creepy floating glasses and had them tell the genius that is his author-insertion character that his pun is SO BAD they aren't inviting him home next year!

They don't invite him home, Randy decided, because they are jealous of his gifts. WHICH IS FINE, HE DOESN'T NEED THEIR STUPID SOLSTICE HOLIDAY AND THEIR TASTY DINNERS AND THEIR PRESENTS ANYWAY

I'd love to get a running start, build up lots of momentum (and oh yes, Randy, kinetic energy too! See, you don't have the market on freshman-level computer science and physics cornered!)

Wait, where the fuck was I... oh yeah, I'd love to get a running start, build up a head of steam, and then when I'm within about 10 ft. of this flaming jackass Randall Munroe, jump from my feet, and execute a flying punch to this bastard's neck. Sure, I'd impart more momentum to the turd if my feet were on the ground, but the satisfaction of flying into this bastard, outstretched horizontally, as my fist connected with his jugular... well, that is pretty close to perfection.

If this hapless shitbag could stop muddling around in mediocrity, I might give him a break. Nahh.... on second thought, fuck him.

How to make a new comic:Step 1: Take an old comic from your archivesStep 2: Strip away the context that made that one a classic or remotely entertaining.Step 3: Remind us of your current situation by making it the new context for the comic!Step 4: Change the wording of your punchline slightly so that people will say "it's a coincidence" very generously.Step 5: Profit!

Argh, it's just as bad as I expected and more. It totally sounds like a picto-blog post, and I thought that perhaps a punchline could redeem it, but alas, the punchline is such absolute shit that it only makes it worse OH WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOOD CHRIST WERE YOU THINKING RANDALL EFFING MUNROE

You see, I think that this is the worst comic that Randall Effing Munroe has ever made. Let me explain. Every comic so far, yes, every single one, had either a recognizable joke or some sort of "cool factor" as a redeeming quality. Yes, even 631. That had a joke too.THIS comic, however, just has Randall Effing Munroe deliver a long rant about how awesome science is, and then deliver the world's worst punchline as an afterthought. Punchline? Really? That's not a punchline. Do you hear that, Randall Effing Munroe? INFORMALITY. IS. NOT. A. PUNCHLINE. YOU FAIL COMEDY FOREVER.

(836) Man, he's not even trying any more. The latest one isn't even a comic, just a bitter outpouring of rage.

About the most generous interpretation I can give of this comic is that Randy is going through difficult times, and is beleaguered by unsolicited offers of advice that he might take mental or spiritual support from religion, which has driven him into a subliminal rage that he has no socially acceptable outlet to express except in his comic.

That's the exact same purpose he had in the only other comic he was in: http://xkcd.com/796/

It's like, all of the sudden randall has a problem with the fact that all of his male stick figures are identical? So he feels the need to stick a hat on this guy, to show that he's not 'the main guy' (aka randall author insert).

the first panel- or OH MY GAWD GUYS REMEBER MY FAMILY ILLNESS? IT MADE MY LIFE SO HARD AND MADE ME SO INSIGHTFUL Oh my family member that actually was sick? who cares! let me tell you about my DEEP Philosophical INSIGHTS.

Panel 1 will be the munchausen panel

GUYS if I dress up common knowledge in confused metaphor then it'll sound SMART and INTELLIGENT and MEGAN will LOVE ME. I mean really. Condense what he's actually said.

"Life is hard, but we can make it easier using tools like engineering and medicine"

HOLY SHIT BLOOD IS SPURTING OUT MY URETHERA MY MIND IS SO BLOWN. No dice randy- despite what you may think your chosen nerds are not the only ones on the planet not retarded enough to reach this conclusion.

Panel 2 will be the poleimic.

"It works bitches" OH MAN REMEBER THAT COMIC? REMEBER HOW MANY T-SHIRTS I SOLD YOU GUYS MUST LOVE THAT. Let's transpose the non-punchline from that comic and put it on this comic! KOMEDEY GOLD!

Except- it doesn't work- the original punchline was a tautaulogy and in this context it's a re-hashed tautaulogy- science works because it is science - it's like stapling a killer whale penis to tinkerbell's forehead- a retarded notion from start to finish.

the REHTORIC PANEL

So the combination of these three panels- retoric, gaudy words with no real meaning (complete with grating dialouge) and attention-seeking behavior make randy seem more like a religious zealot than the religious and spiritual he presumably lampoons in his comic.

Anyone who thinks this isn't about religion is deluding themselves. I could see the faith healing/alternative medicine interpretation if not for the whole "begrudge nobody their sources of solace" portion. I also feel that that very same sentence is just inserted to help stave off the flood of hate mail, but is really just instead saying "I'll smile and pat you on the head and maybe you won't realize I'm just saying that I think your entire worldview is nothing more than a primitive comfort object". To rephrase, even if he tries to skirt a direct attack on those who are believers, he still dismisses religion as nothing but something for comfort.

Disregarding all that, the comic is not really cohesive. White hat guy asks if being sick has opened the main-stick-guy to looking for answer besides science. His initial answer is "umm, no". The second panel starts by saying that he does not begrudge those who believe... this still makes sense in the context of the question asked, but then it takes a turn for the weird. "But Science provides tools... and arrows of our own" makes it sound like Randy thinks that Faith and Science are mutually exclusive. That is completely silly. Also, he continues ranting about how awesome science is because 'it works'. How is that answering the initial question that was asked? White hat guy never seemed to doubt it. Also, the last line is obviously pandering to the base, but beyond that it is just a silly breaking of the fourth wall. He is only talking to one guy who never doubted science before, so he must be talking to us, or well... I suppose main-stick-guy could be an xkcd-reader who "sperged out" and quoted an old xkcd strip to clinch his argument. I could definitely see a lot of you forum posters clenching your fist and shouting that out as your voice cracks just a little.

I also don't think Randall knows what ineffable means. I think he is trying to say that scientists did/do not accept reality as mysterious and unexplainable, but ineffability specifically concerns things that be expressed in WORDS ('words' being the most important word here). I think "people who refused to think of reality as inexplicable" would be more on target. Feel free to call me out on this one and describe how ineffable works though.

No xkcd comic has ever made me as angry as this one made. This comic is the perfect, absolutely perfect mixture of scientific arrogance and dumbness. My heart burns with pain knowing that there are people spewing such garbage through the world.

Science DOES indeed work: if you get enough of it, you'll become a pretentious asshole.

Thank you, Ves. I'm usually content with posting my provocations on the forums and going off my merry way, checking out later what were the reactions; but this particular comic made me so phenomenally depressed and irritated that I realised a short, simple mockery wouldn't make it justice. I suppose you could say that is a merit for Randall...

You can see after that how the "I begrudge nobody their sources of solace" is a clear cover-your-ass statement since everyone cites that. Which to me is like saying "Nothing personal, but you smell like a rotten fish."

As Karl has already pointed out, Randy's attempts at prose come across as trying too damn hard. Maybe if Randy had spent more time in a "useless" subject like literature, he'd have a better grasp of what's "elegant" and what's "overwrought".

To be fair to Randall, "I begrudge nobody their sources of solace" is pretty much exactly as backhanded to say to a religious person as a religious person saying to an atheist, "Has X event opened you up to looking for answers beyond science?"

Because asking an atheist that is basically saying, "Have you admitted you're wrong yet?" and is every bit as smug as anything Randall responded with. I'd say it's a strawman but people seriously do say things like that. It's still the format of a strawman though, with one person saying something solely for the other person to tear apart their rhetoric.

Still, wtf? How is this a comic? It's a guy talking for a long time about a boring subject in an awkward way and then saying a curse word. Is the humor in the juxtaposition of the overly verbose rant with the crudeness of the 'punchline'? Is it in how 'right' the dude is supposed to be? If it's not supposed to be funny, is it supposed to be enlightening? Well... it's saying nothing new and doing it with a confusing "weaponry" analogy that really never goes anywhere and just muddies the point since the topic is sickness.

I wonder if Randy DOES suffer from some form of Münchausen syndrome (possibly by proxy)--he sure loves to revisit the topic of his ill-fallen relative(s). I accepted it during the 5-minute comics week--If someone visited xkcd during the middle of the week and saw a different format they'd want an explanation. But now it's about 3 weeks since the guest comics, and I find it unacceptable. WE KNOW, RANDY. YOU HA(VE|D) A SICK RELATIVE; THESE THINGS HAPPEN.

they probably do, but apparently redux hasn't bothered with it. my understanding was it had been a few comics since redux had posted (I have never bothered reading his posts so I couldn't say for sure) when the "hacker" found his password in the Gawker leak, so it's very probable he doesn't even know/care.

I hope the slapper (like a hacker, but with less force and worse instruments) never dies. He's an incredible vindication of how randall's fanbase have SERIOUS INSECURITIES and read XKCD to affirm their 'smartness'.

I think you took the Randy hate too far, Rob. I feel that the whole of the review could have been put into a paragraph in the beginning, and could have been a starting point-rather than being the entire review.

@Rob I'm not really taking it seriously. I just think that when it comes to reviews (of any kind), the actual review should be the core, rather than having the whole thing be based on a joke (xkcdsuxredux has done this many times).

Also, I think it's interesting how you're using the argument that I shouldn't take it seriously, when you have said the same thing about XKCD. Hey, if I don't take it seriously, maybe I'll get a laugh out of it, instead of actually paying attention to if there's actually humor in it.

What makes you say I'm not reading it as intended? You obviously made the review based on the idea that Randy got the idea from spying on Megan-which is good, but I think should have just been a short part of the review, not the whole thing. As I said, that's just my two cents on the matter.

By the way, analyzing something=/=taking something too seriously. You seem like the kinda guy who would understand that.

By taking it too far, I meant that the joke went on (in my taste) too long in the review. I like it when that kind of joke is more of a launching point (as I previously said) rather than the entirety of the review.

I'm an atheist and I agree with the basic message of 836-- however, that does NOT mean I liked it. I agree that the dialogue is awkward (though maybe Randy actually talks that way) and the whole comic is annoyingly preachy. Kind of like a bizarro Jack Chick tract.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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